Embedded Internationalisms: Building Transnational Solidarity in the British and Norwegian Trade Union Movements

There has been growing interest in the prospects for a new trade union internationalism in recent years, following the end of the Cold War and the coming together of the main national union organisations into one confederation, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). For the first time in decades, geopolitical straitjackets and defensive nationalistic postures are giving way to more open, internationalist perspectives as unions attempt to get to grips with global capitalism. However, despite some well‐publicised grassroots globalisation campaigns, effective international labour organising and networking remains thin on the ground. One of the reasons for this is that, despite the rhetoric of globalisation and the reality of multi‐layered governance, the "national" space remains the critical scale at which unions operate. Variations in both union organisation and the politico‐institutional context within which unions operate nationally continue to shape international solidarity activities. This theme is pursued in this paper through the contrasting cases of the UK and Norwegian trade union movements. Although both union movements have been subject to similar problems in recent years, in terms of membership decline and the pressures of increasing global economic integration, the different national political and economic contexts within which unions are embedded have been important in facilitating or constraining international strategies.     

Genuine Renewal or Pyrrhic Victory? The Scale Politics of Trade Union Recognition in the UK

There is an ongoing debate within radical geography concerned with the trade union response to the hegemony of business interests apparent under neoliberal capitalism. In this paper, I contribute to this debate by exploring recent attempts to renew trade union organisation in the UK following decades of decline. I argue that, despite recent successes in stemming falling membership numbers and signing new recognition agreements, closer inspection reveals flaws in the renewal process that reflect the underlying nature of scale politics within the union movement itself. In particular, centralised strategies at the national level are failing to re‐energise local‐level union organisation leading to a rather hollow and pyrrhic renewal process. Drawing upon both macro‐level analysis and evidence from a particular industry case study, I suggest that unions rethink their organisational geographies and scalar relations if they wish to re‐connect with the grassroots and at a broader level remain a progressive force in the changing economic landscape.     

Community unionism and trade union renewal in the UK: moving beyond the fragments at last?

This paper explores the theory and practice of community unionism. It is now widely argued that if trade unions are to reach employees in small workplaces, those on part-time or temporary contracts, and women, black and ethnic minority workers, they need to sustain alliances beyond the walls of the workplace. Increasing the scale of political mobilization in this way can help secure trade union organization amongst new groups of workers while giving unions the power to raise questions of economic and social justice at a wider scale. After summarizing current developments in North America, the paper focuses on the situation in the UK in more detail. By highlighting the pioneering community unionism of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) and Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council (BWTUC), the paper explores the implications of community unionism for the future of trade unionism in the UK.     

Labour internationalism and the public sector: The case of the Public Services International

This paper sets out the need to conceptualise labour internationalism in the public sector, given its distinct political character and orientation. Our analysis adds to a literature on labour internationalism that hitherto has mainly depicted strategies of unions in private sector industries. To better understand the reasons for upscaling trade union efforts in a sector where the main employer remains the institutional apparatus of the nation-state, we have interviewed office bearers in the most important global union federation organising across different public services – Public Services International (PSI) – asking them to explain their political and strategic considerations. We find that the distinct role of the nation state as an employer, the public character of work and specific relations between public sector workers and the users of services, are all determinants in shaping labour transnationalism in the public sector. This in turn leads to a greater emphasis on alliances with social movements and oppositional campaigns, representing a radical global political unionism. Neoliberal austerity and privatisation measures have reinforced the importance of such political relationships and power, but also challenged their organisational foundations. However, alliance-building is not PSI's sole strategy. We find that office bearers at the transnational level combines three strategic rationales through orientations that we have labelled the political-institutional, the movement-popular and the industrial-corporate. We also suggest that employing these sensitising concepts can bolster the scholarly treatment of understanding labour internationalism and its strategy repertoires more generally.     

Labour in 'lean' times: geography, scale and the national trajectories of workplace change

In this paper we argue that far from being surpassed by globalization, the nation-state remains a key space for organized labour. However, labour geographers' focus on patterns of union organization and strategies of 'internationalism' underplays the enduring role of national institutions. Moreover, while labour geographers have recognized the significance of new forms of work organization, such as just in time and lean production, with some exceptions they have not examined how unions both formally and informally determine the trajectory of workplace change. Based on case studies of unions in the Canadian and German auto industries, we stress that the linkage between national and workplace scales remains critical to understanding how unions are responding to the challenges being presented by lean and just in time production. Finally, while there is a re-scaling of bargaining in the automobile industry to the firm or enterprise scale, the outcomes of decentralization depend largely on the national regulatory context.     

United by a Common Language? Trade Union Responses in the UK and India to Call Centre Offshoring

Abstract: The offshoring of business processes from the global North to low‐cost countries of the global South has grown spectacularly in the current decade. Self‐evidently, transnational relocation presents considerable challenges for organised labour since it suggests both a ‘race to the bottom’ in respect of pay, conditions and workers' rights and wholesale redundancies in the developed economies. This paper examines the specific case of the migration of call centres from the UK to India and trade union responses in both geographies. Informed by theoretical developments, insights and evidence from diverse disciplines and literatures, the authors concur particularly with Herod's conviction that union strategies to counter TNCs should not be counterposed between ‘organising globally’ and ‘organising locally’and that ‘organising at both scales simultaneously may best serve their goals’. Following reflection upon the nature of the call centre and consideration of important contradictions in the offshoring process, we present evidence of UK union responses ranging from the nationalistic, even xenophobic, to the internationalsist, and conclude that membership mobilisation on a principled basis has been key to the limited successes unions have achieved. The paper also evaluates developments in India and the emergence of an embryonic organisation UNITES which is attempting to organise its call centre and business process outsourcing (BPO) workforce. We conclude by considering the gap between the potential and the reality of effective internationally co‐ordinated union activity.     

Belgian labour in World War II: Strategies of survival,organisations and labour relations

A system of collective bargaining at sector level emerged in Belgium after the First World War. The commissions paritaires, in which unions and employers were equally represented, became the centres of power of the pillarised Belgian trade union movement. This system of industrial relations was challenged during the general strike of 1936. Some employers tried to compete with the unions by creating factory councils, yellow unions and 'mutual societies' at company level. The strategic aim was to remove the centre of labour relations from sector to factory level. This tendency was reinforced during the Second World War. Pre-war trade unions were abolished, employers tried to take over the role of the unions by creating all kinds of social provisions at company level. The factory became a basic element of the survival strategy of the workers. Moreover, from 1941 a clandestine and more radical trade union movement, which opposed the pre-war pillarised trade unionism, emerged. These clandestine unions were organised at factory level. In their view, the factory and not the sector had to become the locus of industrial relations after the war. The organisational framework that was established between 1944 and 1952 was a synthesis of the pre-war model of industrial relations and newly established councils at company level.     

Southern Unionism and the New Labour Internationalism

The paper traces the genesis of SIGTUR, a new network/organization of southern unions that has been built over the past decade, which brings together democratic unions from Latin America, Southern Africa, Asia and Australasia. The impact of neoliberal globalisation has spurred this action, and Australian unions—with their rich tradition of labour internationalism—have been at the forefront. The paper shows how the initial hostility of the established trade union internationals has been transformed into strategic alliances as the internationals have come to value SIGTUR's campaign orientation. The paper argues that SIGTUR has continued to expand because of its strong emphasis on internal democracy. The new southern alliance is one instance of a search for a new form of unionism—global social movement unionism—that may offer greater scope for a more effective resistance to the logic of globalisation. In the new millennium, this search is critical if unions are to rekindle the vision and the confidence that drove the early movement.     

The Paradox of Contemporary Immigrant Political Mobilization: Organized Labor, Undocumented Migrants, and Electoral Participation in Los Angeles

This article illuminates a paradox in the contemporary political mobilization of new Americans. While labor unions are taking an increasingly active role in the successful mobilization of foreign‐born residents in electoral politics, a substantial number of these newly mobilized Americans are undocumented migrants and residents, and thus are members of a growing and permanently disenfranchised working class. While this marginalized labor force benefits capital, an expanding long‐term, non‐citizen population presents a serious challenge to democratic politics. In this article, I discuss a case study which demonstrates both sides of this paradox. Facilitated by broader Latino political mobilization, their membership in progressive labor unions, and labor's shifting political strategy, many undocumented residents of Los Angeles are participating in candidate endorsements, campaign rallies, and "get out the vote" efforts, even though they are unable to vote on election day. Their actions portend future reconfigurations of the boundaries which surround citizenship and suffrage.     

Police unions and use-of-force reforms in American cities

Following the murder of George Floyd, there was widespread debate about the policies that govern the use of force by police, but municipal leaders suggested that police unions kept many of the proposed changes from being adopted. Although there is anecdotal and scholarly evidence that unions frequently oppose policing reform, the limited literature in this area actually offers somewhat mixed conclusions about the relationship between union strength and the success of previous reform efforts. In this study, we draw on Halpin's theory of interest groups as politically adaptive organizations to develop expectations about the behavior of police unions in police governance subsystems. We hypothesize that union attempts to influence policy will correlate positively with reform adoption when the political environment is conducive to victory on that front or makes the cost of opposition too high and negatively when the opposite conditions hold. Analyses of the impact of union campaign contributions on the adoption of use-of-force policies in the 100 largest U.S. cities demonstrate that the nature and direction of union influence are moderated by the political climate of the jurisdiction in which they operate.     

Restructuring British Public Sector Industrial Relations: State Policies and Trade Union Responses

This article examines how Conservative governments restructured public sector in day trial relations in Britain between 1979 and 1997, and identifies the main components of trade union strategic response to change. It argues that Conservative policy is important for its impact upon trade union strategy and practice, and that public sector unions constitute the leading edge of trade union strategic modernization in Britain.     

Labor agency and the importance of the national scale: Emergent aquaculture unionism in Chile

In this article we argue for the continuing relevance of the national scale in understanding the geographies that shape and constrain labor agency. Recent contributions to labor geography have held that some of the central concepts used to understand the transformative capacities of labor, such as agency and scale, are under-theorized. On the basis of our study of the emergent labor movement in the Chilean aquaculture industry, we suggest that this field suffers from what we term “glocalocentrism”, which overshadows the fundamental importance of structures and processes that are primarily scaled nationally. With the labor repression of the Pinochet regime imprinted in current national institutions and organizational traditions, the aquaculture sector was able to develop in southern Chile from the early 1980s onwards, without a significant union movement to press workers’ claims, and it benefited from exploitative practices and low wages. The first company level unions did not appear until the late 1980s, and a national confederation of aquaculture unions was formed as late as 2006. After the outbreak of the ISA virus in 2007, thousands of workers were left unemployed, and the young union movement struggled for state intervention and programs, with some success. International networks brought attention to the issue, but structures and processes at the national level conditioned the possibilities for the emergent labor movement to press its claims successfully.     

Trade unions,the Australian Labor Party and the Trade–Labour Rights Debate

This paper examines the Australian trade union movement's campaign to convince the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to support the inclusion of core labour standards in international trade agreements. Despite historical affiliations, the Australian union movement has been unsuccessful in its attempts to influence the ALP. In contrast, the US union movement has convinced both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to accept that core labour standards should be a part of the trade negotiating agenda. The reasons for the US unions' success on this issue are examined within the context of the changing relationship between the respective union movements and their traditional parliamentary allies. The need for Australian unions to examine and reassess their strategies by drawing lessons from the US experience, including the possibility of a changed relationship with the ALP, is discussed.     

Propositions on Trade Unions and Informal Employment in Times of Globalisation

The purpose of this contribution is to identify some of the issues which need to be addressed in order to advance the organisation of workers, and in particular women workers, in informal employment. The organisation of these workers, collectively described as the "informal sector", represents an existential challenge to the trade union movement: unless and until it puts itself in a position to effectively address this challenge, it cannot halt its decline, but in order to do so it has to undergo fundamental changes in its culture, its self-awareness and the way it relates to society. The issue of organising the informal sector is at the heart of the necessary transformations the trade union movement must undergo to recover its potential as a global social force.     

“We Make it Work”: The Cultural Transformation of Hotel Workers in the City

This article explores the “cultural project” of a hotel workers’ union in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is an examination of the efforts of HERE (now UNITE‐HERE) Local 75 to transform the identity and image of hotel workers through the promotion of cultural activities involving rank‐and‐file members. Part of a larger union renewal project, the cultural project attempts to build solidarity by connecting with members’ lives beyond the workplace. Furthermore, the union's cultural strategies are linked to the development of the city's tourism sector, situating the union's efforts in broader processes of place promotion. The investigation seeks to identify how worker engagement with the cultural implicates organized labour in contradictory processes producing both emancipatory and oppressive economic landscapes.     

Unions,Parties, and the Politics of State Government Legacy Cost

Many American state governments have made extensive promises to pay for employees’ health care and other benefits in retirement. Currently estimated at over $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities, these other postemployment benefits (OPEB) are creating a major fiscal problem for state governments. In this article, we examine the politics of OPEB. We seek to explain the variation in the generosity of OPEB across U.S. states. We argue that party competition theories do not adequately explain the outcomes we observe. Instead, we draw on the emerging Schattschneiderian approach to the politics of public policy to show that public union strength conditions a party's incentives to represent unions’ interests. In states where public sector unions are strong, unions can find their way into either party's coalition. We find that Republicans are more responsive to public union interests than either their ideological brand or prior research would suggest. It is only in states where public employees are weak that Republicans can act unilaterally and enact their preference for less government spending. To test our theories, we carry out an empirical analysis using a newly assembled data set of per capita OPEB liabilities across 49 states.     

Spaces of Labor Activism, Mexican‐American Women and the Farm Worker Movement in South Texas Since 1966

This paper studies the farm worker unionization experience and the historical development of Mexican‐American women's activism in South Texas to elaborate more precisely the relationship among socio‐spatial practices, political activism and labor's geography. Drawing upon archival documents and interviews, the paper describes how Mexican‐American farm workers used public space for political activity; however, radical unionization efforts also domesticized other spaces for women's activities. The paper chronicles how Mexican‐American women in South Texas transformed the farm worker center from a "domesticated space" into one of empowerment. In short, women in the union made the farm worker center into a space that challenged both the class‐based structure of larger South Texas society and masculinist practices within the larger farm worker movement. The analysis advances the imperative to better understand how workers "make space" to ensure their own survival. The paper advances the study of labor geography by arguing that working class mobilization reconstitutes dynamic social geographies within laboring communities themselves. In arguing this point, the paper illustrates the limitations of activism based solely on the use of public space and argues for more attention to the significance of other socio‐political spaces for labor mobilization.     

Institutionalising Future Geographies of Financial Inclusion: National Legitimacy Versus Local Autonomy in the British Credit Union Movement

In Great Britain, financial infrastructure withdrawal and community economic decline have focused attention on the capacity of locally "alternative" financial institutions to combat social and financial exclusion. This paper examines one such institution, the residential or "community" credit union, which provides a low-cost source of credit for members drawn from a common bond area usually based upon place of residence and/or work. Although community credit unions have traditionally been seen as providing individuals and communities with the opportunity to access credit and savings facilities in areas where there has been contraction in bank and building society provision (the financial "mainstream"), ongoing attempts exist to move away from the traditional role of community credit unions. This transition has set up three main challenges for the British credit union movement, discussed in this paper as follows: (1) a struggle over the attempt to redefine the "model" credit union within the national credit union movement; (2) the changing regulatory context for credit union development, including attempts to embrace credit unions within New Labour policies on social exclusion; and (3) a "local" challenge, including the incorporation of credit unions into community economic development initiatives. The paper considers how these challenges feed into wider understandings about the social relations, categorisation and autonomy of locally "alternative" financial institutions. We argue that future research on geographies of financial inclusion focusing on "alternative" institutions and their relationship to the financial mainstream needs to pay close critical attention to potential contradictions and tensions operating at different, yet intersecting spatial scales.     

Austerity,Right Populism,and the Crisis of Labour in Canada

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, neoliberal governments embarked on austerity programs that include reducing public services, imposing public sector wage restraint, and reorganizing public sector working conditions and labour relations. In this context of economic crisis and austerity, populism has risen across North America and Europe on both the right and left of the political spectrum. The rise of right populism in particular confronts unions with key organizational and strategic challenges as neoliberal governments seek to mobilize right populist discourses in their efforts to restructure work and labour relations. Using a socio‐geographic framework, and based on an examination of post‐2008 legislative and policy measures undertaken at the federal, provincial, municipal levels in Canada, this paper explores the nexus between “uneven austerity”, rising populism, and union strategic capacities. We examine this intersection of austerity and populism at multiple scales to reveal the implications for organized labour.     

“Our Tarkine,Our Future”: The Australian Workers Union Use of Narratives Around Place and Community in West and North West Tasmania,Australia

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) represents the miners on the West Coast of Tasmania. When the future of mining on much of the West Coast was threatened by the environmentalists' proposed National Heritage listing of the Tarkine region, the union campaigned to prevent the listing. Through its embeddedness in place, the AWU was able to use a sense of place, memory and identity to construct a community campaign that moved beyond the West Coast into the North West Coast where many of the miners lived. The union was able to renew its narrative resources by moving work out of the workplace and into the Tarkine. In this way the AWU was able to mobilise community support and shift political power to the local where workers could regain control over their lives and the place where they lived and worked.